NEWS: This is the production 2020 Toyota Supra

After a 17 year hiatus, the Supra nameplate has returned to the automotive kingdom, unveiled today at the Detroit Auto Show. A poorly kept secret and incessantly teased, the reveal is perhaps no longer really a surprise, but here are the details Toyota provided at today’s press conference.

CEO Akio Toyoda took the stage to tell a personal story about how Toyota master test driver Hiromu Naruse taught him how to race. During lessons at the Nürburgring, Toyoda was put behind a JZA80 Supra, even though it was already out of production at the time. With the Nürburgring being a popular venue for prototype testing by all automakers, Toyoda said he wondered why automakers from Audi to GM were in test mules of future sports cars, while he was driving a used car.

Toyoda jokingly referred to the new Supra as the “worst kept secret in the industry” before telling its origin story. When Toyoda saw that designers at his company’s Calty stuido had come up with a beautiful sports car concept, he knew that this would be the next Supra. Toyoda said the design inspired by 2000GT, which is more apparent in the production version than in the FT-1 concept.

Most of the specs have been known for a while, but also leaked over the weekend was that the starting price would be $49,990, which is lower than what many expected.

Toyoda closed with one last tease. “SUVs are nice, but at the end of the day, is there anything better than a tight, rear-wheel-drive sports car? In fact, between you and me, I hope this isn’t the only sports car you see with at Toyota badge in the future.”

very good toyota with the new supra. now to wait for the news of the Mazda rx-9 with rotary engine to hydrogen and hybrid system to complete the panorama of Japanese sports cars (which will be the most beautiful in terms of design)

Sooo proud and glad to call Akio my boss, seriously can’t wait to see the first ones hit these shores.Super excited to say i’m the one that gets to drive them first at my work!!! My boss said the first one coming in is going into his collection!!! Can’t wait!

Toyoda closed with one last tease. “SUVs are nice, but at the end of the day, is there anything better than a tight, rear-wheel-drive sports car? In fact, between you and me, I hope this isn’t the only sports car you see with a TOYOTA BADGE in the future.”

Great! In the future we can look forward to many other non-Toyotas with Toyota badges!

If only Toyota themselves have a rich, world-class heritage of engineering, building and designing their own sports cars…

As a Toyobaru owner…I agree. I wish Toyota had just made the 86 themselves. Maybe with a new evolution of the BEAMS 3S-GE or maybe something like the 8AR-FTS.

But I do have a valve spring recall to look forward to now…(yes, I realize Toyota has had recalls in the past…but, what can I say…I’m prejudiced).

In the same vein, a flagship like the Supra seems like it should have a proper Toyota engine. I mean, aren’t engine series like the A, R, S, T, JZ –etc– (and their G heads) a big part of what made so many nostalgic Toyotas so special?

Sorry this isn’t a Supra, not with a BMW drive train and interior. Its a fail for me, as an enthusiast. they shouldn’t have called it Supra, anything but. and don’t get me started on over done exterior design.

Why do we need to drive it to verify that it is in fact a BMW? That point is not open for argument, it quite literally is not a Toyota underneath the badges. To many of us, that makes how it may or may not drive totally irrelevant.

Please dear MR X something… If you’re not enough mature for accept disagreement with your opinion, or read something that will hurting your ears of child, please can you go playing outside with your mother, it seem to me that your childhood playing time has not been satisfactory enough on this point and by the way, I’m TOTALLY with Craig opinion, this car will never worth the four generations before who was A LOT more beautiful and desirables, nothing to do with this one and YES IT’S UGLY.

YOU HAVE BEEN THE FIRST ONE OF TREATING ME OF MORON SOME WEEKS AGO, please DON’T TALK RESPECT of any kind with me, i have absolutely NO LESSONS of getting about that FROM YOU. I have absolutely no records about your adhesion to this website (really don’t want it), I’m not talked at you this bad because of the time you are there in this site, it mostly because it’s the first thought that came in my mind when you did called me moron and you DON’T accept any contradictions, THIS IS JUVENILE. And by the way, of what troubles you may refer??? And yes, this car may be one of the worst looking car ever made by Toyota, they made a lot since twenty years, and it’s even not really a Toyota, what a joke like one said yesterday!! Have a nice day MR X something.

ok. I apologize right now…..but let’s not go too far seriously….however have you already knew the similar front between the bmw 8 series(not the new one)and the a70 supra……someone on facebook pointed out or something

Yes let’s talk about the real things and Yes this time you’re all right with your way of thinking. MA70, BMW 840 and 850 have about the same theme front end .They were all absolute beautiful cars and became instantly classics but not many have survived, like a lot of beautiful BMW, and like a lot of MA70 Supra. I bought an MA70 brand new when i was 26 and I’m now 54 and still have it and she’s still new today. And you will never know of how is the feeling of coming to the dealer and take possession of a car like this!!! We were in the end of a period of cars that were desirables, a period of cars that were designed by real HUMANS who was really passionate about what they were doing, cars that were halo cars when parked in showrooms of those days. NOTHING to do with insect (to not say infect) styling which will never inspiring and provoke ANYTHING but make pleasure to Akio Toyoda, one of the same guys that asked all of us to put our classic Toyota to the junk yard, (please remember the FJ60 ad and cash for clunkers) and after stopped to making parts for keeping them alive. And by now, this same guy have an absolute need of all these classics to impress the gallery and making beautiful pictures and drama at Sema show, Barrett Jackson (just watch next weekend) etc. Please, just don’t let anybody decided for you what is now desirable and beautiful, please believe me, we can again say NO to these individuals sinister. And by the way, it’s again impossible by now to get original parts for my MA70 and mostly my MX32, it’s even harder to get parts for these two cars than getting parts for an AMC Javelin, a carmaker that is no more on business since near forty years!!! It’s my way of thinking and have a nice day.

Those torque numbers…lordy. The design doesn’t really do it for me though. In proportions, it looks like the Toyota sportscar has exactly followed the American adult from 1968 to 2018. The 2000GT is scrawny by modern standards, while the new Supra looks overly larded up or swoll. I don’t like that. And its just busy. The JZA80 was a great example of 90s style smooth simplicity. There are a lot of timelessly styled cars from that era because the styling trend was for smooth, curvaceous simplicity. The current crop of cars are just completely festooned with all kinds of pointless creases and dented bits and angles sunken in. I expect this car to sell pretty well though, and I hope it drives mkIV prices down. I personally really don’t want BMW anything.

The last Supra was offered with a ridiculous high price when the market was going down. The economy is going down again whether you folks believe it or not. Releasing this Supra at the $50k price might be another risk, but a good risk this time. The past several years the US economy was doing well, and folks started buying up all kinds of expensive cars. What happens when the market shifts again? You will see guys unload their exotics and go back to something manageable. I think this new Supra, is going to be awesome in the next few years. I can already picture all the aero, wheels, power upgrades, and everything for it. Personally I love the body styling, perhaps it reminds me of the Batmobile. Haha.

I know I’m reading way too much into it, but I can’t help but feel that Akio’s comments about other Toyota sports cars in the future hinted at the much rumoured MR2 revival. Oh, and as much as I want to dislike the strong BMW presence in the Supra, I can’t help myself: I’m in love!

I do have mixed feelings about the Supra…but it is also set as my computer desktop background at the moment. I also had mixed feelings about the Subaru boxer engine (etc) in the 86. But I really like my FR-S (and rationalize that the Toyota S800 was a boxer and that helps make sense of the partnership). So, I probably just need to join the modern world and get over my biases. (Incidentally I’m an American of German/Scandinavian descent…but I prefer Japanese vehicles).

I also tell myself that Akio Toyoda has much, much stronger ties and relationship to the Supra and its heritage than I do (considering I’ve never owned or driven one, and he is Toyota President and Master Driver), so if he is OK with the route they took…maybe I should be too!